Collection of the Bureau Bestrijding Vermogensvlucht - Bureau for the War against the Smuggle of Capital and Property, the Netherlands, 1945-1967

Collection of the Bureau Bestrijding Vermogensvlucht - Bureau for the War against the Smuggle of Capital and Property, the Netherlands, 1945-1967
 
 Establishment of the Bureau Bestrijding Vermogensvlucht - Bureau for the War against the Smuggle of Capital and Property, in July 1945, in order to locate Dutch property - personal property and state property - such as: diamonds, machinery, art collections, stamp collections, banking securities, church bells and other items that were "purchased" or stolen and transferred to Germany and to other countries during the German occupation;
 
 Included in the collection:
 
 Survey report prepared in 1967, regarding the bureau's activities, including the matter of the looting, by Alois Miedl, of art objects and stamp collections owned by Jews, stamp traders or private owners of collections; documents regarding the declaration by "Schneller" concerning the paintings belonging to the Jewish art dealer Goudstikker in 1945; document regarding the sale of the painting "Martha en Maria" by the painter Vermeer, to Goering in 1945; document including a description of how the painter Van Meegeren forged a painting in the style of Vermeer in 1945; document regarding the problem of the restitution of Dutch property due to the following reasons: a) the definitions by the Swiss, regarding Dutch property that was transferred to Switzerland; b) the aspirations by the Allied forced to take control in 1946 over all of the property that was looted in the countries under German occupation;
 
 Many documents mention Alois Miedl and Hans Tietje, Germans who had settled in the Netherlands long before the war, and who dealt among other matters in the purchase, for the Germans during the occupation, of art works by famous classic artists, some of them which were owned by Jews; many documents relate to banking securities of a Portuguese company that were owned by Dutchmen; transfer of the banking securities to German ownership in an illegal manner; the business deals were carried out by Alfred Flesche and Johan Voetelink, who were clerks in the Lippmann Rosenthal Bank; pressure by the Portuguese government on the German authorities in the Netherlands, to treat the Dutch Jews of Portuguese origin with mercifulness during the occupation; documents regarding the sale of shares of the Societe Anonyme des Mines de Bou-Arfa company to German organizations, by the Dutch company WM H. Muller & Co.; documents regarding the "sale" of diamonds and jewelry and the transfer of machinery for the processing of diamonds, most being the property of Jewish diamond dealers, to Germany; documents regarding the locating of stamp collections owned by Dutchmen, most of them being the property of traders; documents regarding the restitution to the Netherlands of five paintings that were located in Germany.